


Human

by notnowcommander



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: F/M, Gen, Pre-Mass Effect 1
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-06
Updated: 2015-05-06
Packaged: 2018-03-29 06:59:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3886699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notnowcommander/pseuds/notnowcommander
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kaidan had entered BAaT thinking he was a normal kid with special abilities. He left feeling like a monster, and wanting nothing more than the affirmation that underneath everything else, he was just human.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Human

The shuttle hit a rough patch of air and shook as it rounded the nearest LZ to the Alenko family home. Kaidan glanced out the small window and saw the cabin along English Bay in the distance. It was slightly offset from the rest of the houses in the area, a little corner of privacy from the constant tourists.

He glanced back down to the cuffs bound tightly around his wrists, and sighed. He tried to ignore it, but he could hear the pilots talking in the front seat, as they had been for most of the ride.

“We sure it’s okay to take him back into the real world?” one of them asked.

“I don’t know, but it’s not our problem.”

“Imagine the damage control if he kills again. We let  _that_ walk. I mean… killed a damn Turian commander like it was nothing.”

The other one grunted. “They’re all better off getting brain cancer or some shit like that. That will get rid of the threat.”

Kaidan felt a dull pain beginning to burn in the back of his head. It wasn’t a migraine, not really. It was just a now constant reminder of what a monster he was. He could feel the piece of metal burned into his skull at all times now, because maybe he deserved the pain. Maybe he deserved the discrimination.

The shuttle set itself down near the lawn of the Alenko house, and the guards opened up the door. Kaidan rose slowly, still weak and unable to move. As he passed, he caught a glance of himself in the window. One of his eyes was still discolored and the cut across his cheek was still red and inflamed. A glaring gash in his lips still bled occasionally, and he’d nervously bitten through it several times on the shuttle ride alone.

“Don’t try anything,” the guard said, pressing in the code on his cuffs and letting him free. There were red marks around his wrists from trying to reposition himself with them to be comfortable, but it was no use.

Kaidan saw the front door of his house open and his mom appear in the door frame. She looked the same as when he’d left her months ago. Her soft dark, olive skin was clear and smooth as ever, her black hair swept into a messy bun. It felt like the first time he could breathe since he left home.

Before he could run to her, throw himself into her arms, the guards grabbed him by both shoulders and held him back. They jerked him backward and kept him in their grasp. He saw the expression on his mother’s face harden and she walked faster to them. If there was one thing that could make him smile right now, it was that these poor guards  _did not_ want his mother’s wrath. Especially if it was her son they were hurting.

Kaidan pulled himself out of their grip and moved forward, throwing his arms around his mom. She grabbed him harder than she ever had in his life. Regardless of how much taller than her he was, he sunk down lower, weak against her.

The guards approached her, and he heard her snap, “Don’t you dare touch him.”

“Ma’am, we’ve only brought your son back because there’s been an incident.”

How was he supposed to tell her he killed someone? How did anyone stand in front of their mother and tell them the thing they were most ashamed of? All he wanted now was to fall to his knees, beg for forgiveness and say that he didn’t mean to.

“Mom,” he choked out, failing to hold back his tears.

“It’s okay, sweetie. It’s okay. I promise.”

“Ma’am, your son killed someone. He’s a killer.”

She shook her head. “No.”

It didn’t sound like a comment of denial, but a pure fact. She knew her son wasn’t the killer they were trying to make him out to be. But Kaidan hardly believed it himself. Every time he shut his eyes, he saw the last twitches Vyrnnus made as he died, the look of horror in every single kid’s eyes as one of their own murdered their instructor in cold blood. And always, Rahna turning away from him and looking at him like a monster. Rahna was right.

“He killed an instructor, one of his teachers.”

His mom grabbed the back of his t-shirt as if to say “Don’t worry. I’m taking care of it.”

“Based off the fact that my son looks someone beat the hell out of him, I’m led to believe this was completely self-defense.”

“It was,” the gentler of the two guards said. “But it still stands… he’s a murderer.”

“Gentlemen,” she said softly, bringing a hand to the top of his head. “I will have my husband’s attorney contact you shortly. I’m taking my son inside, and I want you to leave.”

Kaidan gripped at his mother’s dress tighter and leaned against her.

“Ma’am?”

“My son doesn’t need anymore trouble. We will handle whatever consequences necessary later.”

He knew now that she was deploying a deadly glare, one that could send two grown men running into their shuttle again. 

She pressed her lips to the side of Kaidan’s head and picked his head out of her shoulder. “Let’s go inside, sweetie. Come on.”

She led him inside the house, and he’d never felt more at home. As a teenaged, naturally, he’d wanted to get out, see the stars that his father talked about all the time. He wanted to serve and do good, but now, all he’d wanted was to just curl up on the couch and have his mom cook him food, and hear her and his father make terrible jokes that would normally make him groan.

He sat down on the couch and his mother kneeled between his legs, one hand on either side of his face. “Tell me what happened, love. What did they do?”

Kaidan shook his head and felt his eyes welling with tears. Where was there to start? The part where he was taken from his home against his will, forced to exert himself to the point of migraines every night, or where he fell in love with a girl who thought he was a monster?

And so as he broke into tears, he told her everything. The treatment, how badly he wished he could talk to them, killing Vyrnnus. And by the end of it, he was in physical pain. His sides hurt from the sobbing and his eyes burned like never before. 

He’d never wished so much that he was just human like everyone else. Not even the days where he came home from school crying because the other kids called him a freak and were scared to play with him. Because then, he could brush it off as the other kids just being mean. Now that he had blood on his hands, he knew that they were right. They should have been scared of him. And he was scared of himself too.

“Mom… I didn’t mean to. I didn’t want to hurt anyone. I thought they were going to make me better, teach me how to control this awful thing I’m stuck with. I didn’t want to hurt him.”

She wiped away the tears falling down his cheeks and kissed his forehead softly. “I know, baby. I know. I know you didn’t. You are so,  _so good._ You would never hurt anyone unless you had to. I know that.”

“But that doesn’t make a difference? I try so hard to be good. I try so damn hard to be human, and it never works. I try to be a good person, but what if underneath it all, they’re all right?”

She broke a faint smile. “Kaidan, sweetie. They’re not. People can be scared, they can say what they want about you. But what you have to know is that you’re scared too. You’re living the best you can, and you are pure and good, and nothing will change that. You’re human as anyone else. I swear you are. And one day, you’re going to never doubt that. You’re going to just feel it and know that there’s no difference. None at all.”

He pulled her into his arms one more time and nodded. “I hope so.”

And fifteen years later, he stood in front of the most beautiful, incredible woman he’d ever met, just the two of them in her quarters. And she looked at him in a way that didn’t say “you’re a biotic”, “you’re a killer”, or “I’m scared of you”. She was the one who had comforted his migraines, who had told him how strong and powerful he was, and how he should never be afraid of himself.

And he uttered words he thought he’d never say.

“You make me feel human.”


End file.
